DESIGNING CRAFT/CRAFTING DESIGN: 40 YEARS OF JAMFACTORY

Education Resource

CREDITSEducation Resource written by Anne Keast, museum education consultant and content writer, Lucy Macdonald, museum education consultant and John Neylon, independent art writer and curator.

The writers acknowledges the particular contribution of Margaret Hancock Davis, Sophie Guiney, Canvas Group and that of JamFactory staff, and the participating artists.

Published by JamFactory19 Morphett Street Adelaide SA 5000 T 08 8410 0727 E contact@jamfactory.com.au

Copyright © the author, artists and JamFactory All rights reserved. The publisher grants permission for this Education Resource to be reproduced and/or stored for twelve months in a retrieval system, transmitted by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying and/or recording only for education purposes and strictly in relation to the exhibition, Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 years of JamFactory at JamFactory, 19 April – 8 June 2013 and subsequent tour until May 2016.

Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of JamFactory 978-0-9807910-3-7

This Education Resource is published to accompany the exhibition

DESIGNING CRAFT/CRAFTING DESIGN: 40 YEARS OF JAMFACTORY

This Education Resource is designed to support learning outcomes and teaching programs associated with viewing Designing Craft/Crafting Design by:

• Providing information about the artists

• Providing information about key works

• Exploring craft/design perspectives within contemporary art

• Challenging students to engage with the works and the exhibition’s themes

• Identifying ways in which the exhibition can be used as a curriculum resource

• Providing strategies for exhibition viewing, as well as pre- and post-visit research

It may be used in conjunction with a visit to the exhibition or as a pre-visit or post-visit resource.

CONTENTS

1. BACKGROUND BRIEFINGAbout this exhibitionJamFactory - at a glanceJamFactory today – trends and directions

2. EXPLORING THE EXHIBITION: THEMESTheme 1: Landscape is our InspirationJeff MINCHAM and Brenden Scott FRENCH

Theme 2: Given another ChanceSue LORRAINE and Scott CHASELING

Theme 3: The Funny SideTom MOORE and Gerry WEDD

Theme 4: Visual GamesHonor FREEMAN and Janice VITKOVSKY

Theme 5: Crossing CulturesTakeshi IUE and Robin BEST

Theme 6: Keep it SimplePeter WALKER and ILLUMINI (Karen CUNNINGHAM and Mandy KING)

Theme 7: Humble BeginningsPeta KRUGER and Lesa FARRANT

Theme 8: Our Natural WorldNick MOUNT and Stephen BOWERS

3. EXPLORING THE WORKS

4. FOR TEACHERS

5. GET STARTEDIn-exhibition engagement activities

6. EXPLORING THEMES AND WORKS PROJECT SHEETS (1-8)

7. FURTHER RESEARCHJamFactory resourcesJamFactory: originsJamFactory – what is it?Design: making a markExtended research resources

8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1. BACKGROUND BRIEFING

About this exhibitionDesigning Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of Jam FactoryCo-curated by Margaret Hancock Davis, Margot Osborne and Brian Parkes this exhibition brings together 40 contemporary artists, designers and craftspeople all of whom have worked in or are alumni of JamFactory’s studios. A book tracing the history and impact of JamFactory on craft and design locally, nationally and internationally accompanies the exhibition.

JamFactory – at a glanceThe following overview is taken from JamFactory site: http://www.jamfactory.com.au/about.phpStudents should access this site before viewing the Designing Craft/Crafting Design exhibition

‘The establishment of the South Australian Craft Authority in 1973, which soon after became the Jam Factory, was a visionary initiative of the South Australian government. Even now, 40 years later, there is still no other organisation in Australia that can rival the breadth and scope of its activities in the support and promotion of contemporary craft and design. Through its training programs, studios, galleries and shops it has nurtured and supported the careers of hundreds of artists, craftspeople and designers – many of whom are now recognised as national and international leaders in their fields.’The Honourable Jay Weatherill MP Premier of South Australia Minister for the Arts

For almost 40 years JamFactory has been presenting outstanding exhibitions and public programs and nurturing the careers of talented artists, craftspeople and designers. JamFactory supports and promotes outstanding design and craftsmanship through its widely acclaimed studios, galleries and shops. A unique not-for-profit organization, JamFactory is supported by the South Australian Government and recognised nationally and internationally as a centre for excellence.

JamFactory current programs and operations are:StudiosJamFactory’s purpose-built studios for ceramics, glass, furniture and metal design provide skills and business training for artists and designers through a two-year Associatetraining program. Staff and Associates create their own work and collaborate on the development and production of JamFactory products and commissions. JamFactory also provides facility hire and subsidised studio space for independent artists and designers.

GalleriesJamFactory operates two exhibition spaces which showcase local, national and international work by leading practitioners. GalleryOne and GalleryTwo (at the Morphett Street site) present a program of curated exhibitions featuring works by established and emerging artists, craftspeople and designers.

ShopsJamFactory’s two shops - Morphett Street and Rundle Mall Plaza - provide an extensive range of hand-crafted ceramics, glassware, jewellery and other collectables by leading Australian artists anddesigners and other products made on-site in the JamFactory studios. Income from these sales directly supports individual artists as well as exhibition and training programs.

Design & production services and moreJamFactory offers design and production services, skills workshops for beginners and professionals, education programs for schools and an artist in residence program. The organization also develops exhibitions for regional, national and international touring. Regional DevelopmentIn late 2013 JamFactory will be opening an exciting new regional facility in the Barossa Valley offering gallery, shop and studios at the historic Seppeltsfield winery.

JamFactory today – trends and directionsBrian Parkes is Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director at JamFactory. In his exhibition essay he outlines his evaluation of JamFactory’s current programmes and projected development. Here are some highlight:

• The diversity and complexity of JamFactory makes it unique. Its business model is ‘extraordinary and dynamic.’

• It is held in high regard across all sectors within South Australia.

• The attraction (for Parkes) to the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JamFactory is linked to his strong personal interest in the intersections of craft, design and industry.

• He saw that there was a key role for JamFactory to play in developing ideas linked to policy debate in South Australia ‘relating to the value of integrating design and design thinking across government and into the private sector.’

• Parkes, in taking up the position in 2010, saw no need to ‘dramatically reinvent’ the organization.

• A process of ‘strategic re-branding has been undertaken to get clarity and consensus around what we stood for and what aspirations should drive the next phase of the JamFactory story.’

• This process has included identifying a set of core values. These include the statement that JamFactory is ‘committed to the skills, ideas and values of artists, craftspeople and designers’ and is an organisation that ‘promotes design education, innovation, craftsmanship and creative thinking as vital to a healthy society.’

Within a framework of re-branding various initiatives and re-appraisals have been undertaken. These include:

•JamFactory-brandedproducts(suchastheKINKoilbottle(designedbyDebJones),the PRESS salad servers (designed by John Quan) and AIRCRAFT lamp (designed by Christian Hall).

•InvitingleadingAustraliandesignerssuchasRobertFoster,SimoneLeAmon,TrentJansenand Elliat Rich to undertake cross disciplinary design workshops with Associates from all four studios, to promote new approaches to thinking about design and studio production.

•Increasingthenumberofstudiospacesforindependentmakers(mainlyemergingartistsand designers) from 16 to 24 spaces.

•Exploringapproachestoexhibitiondevelopment.OneoutcomehasbeenPrototyping: Making ideas (2011), curated by JamFactory Curator and Exhibitions Manager Margaret Hancock Davis.

ChallengesParkes recognises a number of significant challenges. These include:

•Highcostofdeliveryandlowenrolmentsforcing the closures (across Australia) of ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles and jewellery courses at many universities and TAFE colleges.

•Enrolmentsincreasingincomputer-aideddesign courses (in preference to hand-skills-based design)

•PostGFCeffectofflatteningartmarkets

The way forwardParkes sees developing skills, particularly for JamFactory Associates to build sustainable practices, as a priority. This will involve exposure to a broad range of experiences, including developing products for retail, undertaking private commissions, creating works for exhibitions and teaching skills to others.

2. EXPLORING THE EXHIBITION: THEMES

Exploring the exhibition can extends beyond looking at individual artist’s work to identifying and considering relationships between any works in the exhibition. An effective way to do this is to see Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 years of JamFactory as an exhibition made up of groups of works with similar thematic links. Deciding on which themes are relevant to any exhibition is a personal process. Here are a number of suggested themes. As you explore the exhibition you may identify additional or alternative themes.

Theme 1: Landscape is our InspirationThe complexities of the Australian landscape, has in its real and imaginary forms, inspired many Australian artists to capture its essence.Jeff MINCHAM and Brenden Scott FRENCH

Theme 2: Given another ChanceArtists have the creative vision to see a new purpose for our discarded waste by recreating often beautiful, sometimes quirky art.Sue LORRAINE and Scott CHASELING

Theme 3: The Funny SideThe idiosyncratic nature of Tom and Gerry’s artworks stimulate both the viewers’ imagination and sense of humour.Tom MOORE and Gerry WEDD

Theme 4: Visual GamesBoth artists’ are playing games with our visual perception, material objects are full of trickery or artworks change as we move around them.Honor FREEMAN and Janice VITKOVSKY

Theme 5: Crossing CulturesThehomegrownheritageofanartists’nativecountryisoftenthefirstinfluencebut not the only cultural stimulus for their creativity.Takeshi IUE and Robin BEST

Theme 6: Keep it SimpleThe inspiration for creating well crafted design or sculpture has evolved with therespective artists’ love of wood and a philosophy of sustainability.Peter WALKER and ILLUMINI ( Karen CUNNINGHAM and Mandy KING)

Theme 7: Humble BeginningsMany artists have a fascination with the ordinary and mundane, not only as asource of inspiration for their artworks but also in their choice of creative mediums.Peta KRUGER and Lesa FARRANT

Theme 8: Our Natural WorldAs highly respected leaders in their chosen fields of glass and ceramics, Nick Mount and Stephen Bowers have sought inspiration from the natural world, to create their art.Nick MOUNT and Stephen BOWERS

3. EXPLORING THE WORKS

The following sixteen artists have been selected (from the forty artists represented in the exhibition) for focus research on the basis of demonstrating a diversity of ideas, styles and use of media in exploring the exhibition’s themes.

The organisation of research under the headings of: Artist Statement, Perspectives, Work, Framing Questions and Research could be used as a template for exploring any of the works in the exhibition.

Designing Craft/Crafting Design has been used as an abbreviation for the full exhibition and catalogue title Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of JamFactory when mentioned as a research source in the Education Resource.

A series of new videos have been produced to support student research on a selection of focus artists, they are listed below under the eight themes and can be directly linked from this page.

Theme 1: Landscape is our InspirationJeff MINCHAM – coil building process demonstratedhttp://youtu.be/xr7GcekvJek

Brenden Scott FRENCH - discussion about kiln formed glass http://youtu.be/JSb8Sst8sSU

Theme 2: Given another ChanceSue LORRAINE – discussion about her interests and aspirationshttp://youtu.be/SFNGveczFS4

Theme 3: The Funny SideTom MOORE - discussion about processes and techniqueshttp://youtu.be/FvG6WzxO2QI

Theme 4: Visual GamesJanice VITKOVSKY - discussion about techniques http://youtu.be/muxamBDrOkY

Theme 5: Crossing CulturesTakeshi IUE - discussion about processes and material choiceshttp://youtu.be/hjo_Z9LvEsI

Theme 6: Keep it SimplePeter WALKER - motivation and processes behind work http://youtu.be/fIKsG5Baa0g

Theme 7: Humble Beginnings Peta KRUGER - discussion of inspiration and techniqueshttp://youtu.be/q-E73haaYTc

Lesa FARRANT - discussion about inspiration and demonstration of slip cast process http://youtu.be/OlNoBgZw9aM

Theme 8: Our Natural WorldNick MOUNT - discussion about inspiration behind his work and making processeshttp://youtu.be/92PGTjUw-6E

4. FOR TEACHERS

Planning a successful group visit to Designing Craft/Crafting Design

Please contact the exhibiting gallery for information regarding the availability of group bookings and school tours. The Resource is designed to be used by secondary – senior secondary visual art teachers and students.

Pre – exhibitionBackground briefing • Inform the students about the origins and content of the exhibition.

• Refer to the Curatorial Frameworks section in this Resource.

• Download the Designing Craft/Crafting Design Education Resource from the JamFactory website

• Visit the JamFactory website

• Visit selected Designing Craft/Crafting Design artists’ websites.

In the exhibitionIf planning to organise a class group as independent viewing, smaller groups (recommended) organise and task these groups now. This will be the best time to distribute prepared activity sheets or the Get Started research activities included in this Education Resource.

Before groups disperse remind students of the usual gallery viewing protocols (such as being aware of others using the space) and to stress the nature of viewing this kind of exhibition which will require studentstospendquality,reflectivetimewithworks,immersingthemselveswithinviewingexperiencesof up to 15 minutes or more.

This session will involve students being involved in some group and individual analysis and response. Scribing is optional but will be useful for on-site reporting and post-visit research. A suggestion is that students in this session try two things: engage with the work of an individual artist and with one of the exhibition’s themes.

For this to happen it would be useful if the students had access to the Designing Craft/Crafting Design Education Resource prior to visiting the exhibition. This could allow students to make thematic selections before arrival.

Post visitPost exhibition options primarily consist of sharing and analyzing the information gathered during the exhibition visit. This information might be:•Informationgatheredon-site

•Individualopinions(shared) •Differenttaskorthemegroupsreportingfindings

5. GET STARTED

In-exhibition engagement activitiesThe following tasks are designed to support/initiate structured viewing and engagement for students in the exhibition. They can be undertaken in any order and are suitable for individual and small group work. Implicit in some tasks is the idea that students or groups will report findings and discuss works with others.

Scribing is not necessary to undertake these activities but some of these tasks could involve scribing to support on-going post visit work.

Think about• When you find yourself wanting to look at some works in particular do you think it is because the

image or subject is interesting or is it because of the artist’s technique or way of interpreting the subject?

• Is there a particular work in this exhibition that contains or is making some kind of social or political comment?

• Is there a particular work in this exhibition which raises more questions than any other work?

• What kinds of questions does this work raise? Compare and discuss your findings with others.

First & last impressions• What did you think about when you first came into the exhibition and looked around?

• Was there any work in particular you wanted to return to and look at again?• Any reasons for this?

• Is there a work in this exhibition that you think you will find hard to forget? Why?

• Is there one work here which challenges you in any way. Look at it again before you leave and consider why this is so.

• Before leaving check out the exhibition one more time to see if there’s an idea or technique in a work that you could try when you get back to school

EasyWhich work was the easiest and which work was the hardest to make – and why?

Analysis and response (individual work/s)• Choose any work that attracts your attention and apply any or all of the following questions

• Are the visual qualities of this work appealing in any way?

• Would this idea have been better expressed in a different way?

• Can you see any kind of connection between this kind of art and others you know about?

• What do you think this work is about or might be saying?

• Has this given you an idea for something you could make as part of your art studies?

• Select one work that appeals in some way and tell someone else your reasons for your selection.

Analysis and response (the exhibition)• Write a review of the exhibition which explores the links or relationships between the works.

• Choose one of the themes suggested in this Education Resource and review the exhibition from this perspective.

• Are there other themes (not identified in this Resource) which could apply to this selection of work.

• Compare two or more works which appear to be exploring similar ideas in different ways?

6. EXPLORING THEMES AND WORKS PROJECT SHEETS (1-8)

THEME 1: Landscape Is Our InspirationThe complexities of the Australian landscape, in its real and imaginary forms, inspired many Australian artists to capture its essence

Jeff MINCHAM Last of the Water (Coorong Series) 2012, handbuilt, multiglaze, midfire clay 200 x 380mm diam

Jeff MINCHAM Artist statement“Above all else, the Jam Factory exposed me to the range of possibilities in ceramics, some of which I rejected and others that I embraced. It also enabled me to see the bigger picture of craft practice as it was then, and connected me to a bigger world” Jeff Mincham, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p 120

PerspectivesFordecadesMinchamhasbeeninfluencedbytherichandevocativelandscapeoftheAdelaideHills in which he lives and works. The colours, moods, textures and events of this landscape find their way into his work, which expresses the nuanced relationship between the artist and the environment.He builds in clay, a material dug from the earth, to create forms that are simultaneously robust and delicate. Mincham’s ceramics have sensuous, tactile surfaces that are the result of a unique process of patination described by the artist as ‘firing and weathering at the same time’.Jeff Mincham, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery Exhibition, 2012

TheCoorongandMurrayLakesregioninSouthAustralia;wheretheoncemightyMurrayRiverflowedinto the Great Southern Ocean is an important eco system comprising fresh water lakes, wetlands, ocean beach and saltwater marshes. This is the landscape that inspired Mincham in his youth and one to which hecontinuallyreturns.Upstreamirrigation,stemmingoftheflowoftheMurrayRiverwaters,andthelong term sustainability of this fragile region are issues of immense concern to Mincham.www.object.com.au/learning/educationkits/jeffmincham:ceramics p 4

WorkJeff Mincham is a highly respected and awarded ceramicist who throughout his career, has used the varied landscapes of South Australia as inspiration for his artworks. Last of the Water (Coorong Series) evokes salt wracked surfaces of dying Coorong waterways at the mouth of the Murray River. Over the last decadetheconditionofthesewaterswasatcrisispoint,duetoreducedwaterflowandthesiltingupofthe Murray mouth.Colours on the pot’s surface are reminiscent of the harsh salt surface discoloured by earth and dust. The cracked and crazed glaze looks like the surface of salt encrusted waterways baked by the sun.

Videohttp://youtu.be/xr7GcekvJek

Brenden Scott FRENCH Tectonic Trace-Binary #6, 2012, kiln formed glass 1200 x 960 x 40mm

Brenden Scott FRENCHArtist statementThoughts on human behaviour and character have been the constant foundation for what I explore in my work. Through issues of human destructiveness and mortality, necessity and sacrifice, I have been seeking verification.

I am fascinated by paradox and I am at times overwhelmed by beauty, I spend hours contemplating the relationship between things in order to clarify the absurdities of transitional permanence. In the real and in the imaginary, my work has patiently evolved. As my understanding of the material develops so too does my relationship to the world. And it is a very colourful place.

“This work references both natural forces and man’s impact on our surroundings” Margaret Hancock Davis, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p90

Perspective To those who know French and his work, the jump to the wall was an inevitable and completely natural progression. Many glass artists venture there these days, with wildly varying degrees of success (just sticking a panel of glass on a wall – regardless of its ‘stylistic’ merit – doesn’t cut it, frankly). The reason why it works for French is that (a) it perfectly suits his already well-established working methodology, and (b) it comfortably fits his personal scale. In other words, it’s appropriate for his practice. During the course of the Hunks exhibition at ANCA it was quite fascinating to watch the local painters being drawn to, and held by, French’s work. One very senior and prominent painter observed, with mocking acerbity, “Ah you glassies, you’ve been trying so hard to do the painterly thing for years…” and then, after a pause, added thoughtfully “ but you know, this bloke’s actually got it.” www.glasscentralcanberra.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/hunksofglass “Unlike many glass artists, French is seduced by the opacity and dense colour of the material, ratherthan its transparency”Margaret Hancock Davis, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p90

WorkFrench uses glass like building blocks to create convincing imaginary landscapes. His multi fired colour blocks are layered and heat fused together to replicate the many layers of the earth’s crust that have been fused together by pressure and time. The pristine nature of his upper landscape is emphasised by its clean lines and pure colours in contrast to the murky sky and muddied sub-surface layers of the lower image.

Videohttp://youtu.be/JSb8Sst8sSU

Framing questions and researchMincham’s immediate environment has inspired his artworks.•Describehowthisinfluenceisevidentinhisworkintheexhibition

Australian artists have been a part of a strong heritage of depicting our landscape in many varied mediums.•HowdoMinchamandFrench’scontemporary3Dviewsofthelandscapeaddtothistradition?

Both artists, in their respective media of clay and glass make us aware of important contemporary issues•Throughpersonalresearchintosuggestedwebsitesplusanalysisoftheartworksintheexhibition, explain some of those issues and the artists’ viewpoints on them.

Further research:http://basement.craftaustralia.org.au/LivingTreasures/20071110.php Mincham talks about his career as a potter and also links to other Craft Australia articles about him.

http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/library/interview.php?id=jeff_mincham comprehensive interview with Jeff Mincham, Ceramics. Living Treasure 2009.

www.object.com.au/learning in Education Kits and Video and Audio Gallery is a comprehensive resource on Jeff Mincham.

www.//artreview.com.au/contents/819479534-landscapes-of-glass Brenden Scott French talking about his career with images of glassworks.

THEME 2: Given Another ChanceArtists have the creative vision to see new purpose for our discarded waste by recreating often beautiful, sometimes quirky art.

Sue LORRAINE Too Pretty for Their Own Good, 2012heat coloured mild steel,iPhone 3 hard shell covers 100 x 90 x 25mm each

Sue LORRAINE Artist statementA little while ago I inherited an iPhone 3… for me this was a new and wonderful piece of technology… but I soon found out for most people it was old technology and on top of that all the iPhone 3 accessories had disappeared from the shelves…the iPhone 3 had been superseded, and through the consumer selection process… gone the way of other species… perhaps it was just to pretty for its own good.Sue Lorraine, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p116

Perspectives In her recent work Lorraine investigates natural history collections, the impulse for collecting and her interests in the theories of natural selection. She has created several ranges of jewellery and objects based on insects: cockroaches made from record vinyl, moths made out of slide transparencies… and nowbutterfliescutfromiPhone3cases,inwhichLorraineexplorestheinbuiltredundancyofconsumergoods as a new form of Darwinism.Margaret Hancock Davis, Designing Craft : Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p116

As an artist working within the field of jewellery and small objects, Sue Lorraine is aware of their powerto eroticise and focus attention on the parts of the body where they are worn or placed. For her, however, the more visceral, yet equally sensual aspects of the inner body are more compelling subjects for scrutiny and interpretation. She understands the way the physiology of the human body is frequently visualised through the schematised and diagrammatic representations of its functions, used to illustrate popular medical texts or didactic science museum exhibits.http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.

WorkAn investigation into Sue Lorraine’s highly creative career indicates an artist driven by two agendas. She is fascinated with the theory of natural selection of evolution, presented by Charles Darwin in the 18 Century and its application to today’s world. Secondly she is curious about the reasons for people amassing collections of objects. Lorraine has her own particular quirky view about collections as she

Scott CHASELINGThe Conqueror, 2012 glass, plastic, wood 2100 x 700 x 700mm

herself collects discarded and redundant products of our consumer society to make her art.

In Too Pretty for their own Good Lorraine has collected and re invented unmistakable, brightly coloured iPhone3 steel cases each with the iconic Apple symbol still intact into a beautiful object about evolution.Herdelicatebutterflyjewelleryhasmadetheredundantdesirableagain.

Video http://youtu.be/SFNGveczFS4

Scott CHASELING Artist statementAll of my work does have self reference, I try to keep the self reference generic, I try to keep it open……..I love the idea of storytelling, I also love the idea of mystery too.Artist interview, Transformations: The language of craft, Artist Interviews: Scott Chaseling, 4.15 mins, national gallery of Australia. The circle is a primal symbol which crosses across many cultures.Art Forum: Scott Chaseling, YouTube, The ANU School of Art, published on Sept 10, 2012

PerspectivesHis signature fused and blown vessels have transmogrified into a kind of cryonic encapsulation; large semi-cylindrical ‘tablets’ hot cast for posterity. They still hold the ‘my life as a cartoon’ narrative edge, butnowwithan’I’mlivinginafishbowl’twist.Giventhattheworks”tellastorythatoftenreflectskeymoments in Scott’s life, or issues close to his heart” the fishbowl analogy is somewhat apt.http://glasscentralcanberra.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/scott-chaseling-at-sabia/

In Europe his work underwent a transformation as he returned to his original passion, sculpture. Moving on from making glass, he turned to readymade conceptual sculptures utilising found objects. The recurring feature of this body of work is his assemblage of forms using glass rings cut from recycled bottles and then connected with plastic ties. This approach references his interest in low-tech, low-skill making processes.Margaret Osborne, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p82 Work Scott Chaseling has created his larger than life The Conqueror from recycled glass and an assortment of found domestic objects. His construction is a far cry from the noble materials of marble and bronze often used in statues honouring heroes of the past. Such humble materials might suggest Chaseling’s hero comes from a humble background. Perhaps the artist does not want us distracted by his skills in making the artwork, preferring us to focus on the idea behind its creation. Who is this modern conqueror ?

Framing questions and research•WhenviewingtheartworkscreatedbySueLorraineandScottChaseling,wasyourpersonalopinionofthefinalpiecesinfluencedbythefactthattheseworksaremadeofrecycledmaterial.Describeyourresponse?

•Doyouthinktheseworkswouldhavebeenexhibitedinanartgalleryinthepast.Explainthereasonsfor your answer.

•Identifysomecontemporaryculturalvaluesthatinfluencedboththeideasandthemakingoftheseartworks.

Further research http://graystreetworkshop.com/partners/sue-lorraine Sue Lorraine’s biographical information, CV and artist statement.

http://www.museumandgalleries.act.gov.au/cmag/ScottChaseling.html biographical information and discussion of Chaseling’s techniques.

http://nga.gov.au/Exhibitions/Transformations this National Gallery of Australia site has a series of videos on selected artists including Scott Chaseling (4:15 min 11MB)

www.museumandgalleries.act.gov.au/cmag/Past-exh information on Deluge an exhibition by Scott Chaseling.

http://www.anu.edu.au/vision/videos/6371/ Scott Chaseling (55.39) The ANU School of Art and the ACT Government present the 2012 public Art Forum series.

THEME 3: The Funny SideThe idiosyncratic nature of Tom and Gerry’s artworks stimulate both the viewer’s imagination and sense of humour.

Tom MOOREOily Invertebrate with heaps-good Scrubby Mounds, etc. 2012 blown and solid glass, mixed media 1600 x 1200 x 240mm

Tom MOOREArtist statementThe ancient craft of glass is fundamental to my art practice. This technically rigorous and inventive work requires patience, endurance and daring. It is also fun: I enjoy using and adapting traditional techniques in the pursuit of surprising new visions. With this as a starting point, my aim is to produce exhibitions that are challenging in content and form while offering the audience an inspiring experience.

Striving to invigorate the audience experience of glass has led me to embrace new technologies through collaboration with digital photographers and animators. The combination of handmade glass with digital animation opens the door to all manner of possibilities for expression. I am optimistic that this mixture will allow me to defy gravity and to melt the coldest heart. http://www.mooreismoore.com/about.php

“I am trying to make humorous glass. Sometimes I try really hard to make something look fresh and spontaneous. I’m after a weird kind of amalgam of good and bad technique; plainness and over decoration, hopelessness and joy. I like nutty proportions and wobbly lines.”http://www.beavergalleries.com.au/moore.htm

PerspectivesTheworkofSouthAustralianglassartistTomMoorehasbeenheavilyinfluencedbyamentorshipwith internationally renowned Japanese glass artist Yoshihiko Takahashi. Tom realised a consolidation of his own interests and glass making skills while studying under Mr Takahashi. He found that he dramatically reassessed his motives for and methods of making glass, gaining a clearer understanding of what he wants to achieve in his work. Whilst still creating fresh and quirky anamorphic pieces in blown glass that embody a witty spontaneity, Tom also incorporates influencesoftraditionalJapaneseculturesourcedfromancientmythandmanga.http://www.beavergalleries.com.au/moore.htm

Tom Moore’s gloriously appealing glass creatures spring from his own fantastical imagination and the rich seabeds of the mythical, imaginary and grotesque. From mediaeval bestiaries with their camel

Gerry WEDD Towards a Standard, 2012coil-built ceramic, cobalt slip decoration560 x 400mm dia

leopards and manticores, to misericord creatures through Lear and Seuss toMoore’s reimagining of an Colonial Australian epergne as a verdantly plumed robot bird with resplendent palm tree, his creatures reuse, recycle and recombine in their never ending metamorphoses.There’sanirrepressiblejoyousnessinthesecreaturesconstantfluxastheybursttheboundariesofanimal/vegetable/mineral and do away with taxonomies and rationality, reinventing themselves in happy disregard of all humanity’s rules….http://www.helengory/Tom

WorkTomMoore’sworldoffantasticglasscreaturesandflorasitseithersideofahorizontaldividingplatform.The underworld bird character with kinky boots is called Prank and has been a consistent and much loved dweller in Moore’s quirky world. His principal personality however is Ancient Malcontent ; this fish has a mouth where his gills should be and he is very irritable because his pond is getting hotter and saltier.FellowcreaturesOilyInvertebrateandtheflyingpotatocararehybridswhoowepartoftheirexistence to the modern automobile. Moore is appealing to his audience on several levels, from the initial excitement of our sense of humour to later revealing messages about ourselves and the world we have created.

Videohttp://youtu.be/FvG6WzxO2QI

Gerry WEDD Artist statement “What I’m doing is I’m putting down a slip which is clay mixed with colorant which will withstand high temperatures in the kiln and then I scratch through it and basically draw....and so sgraffito....it even sounds like what it is scratched through”

“It sums up all the work I do because I’ve never been able to draw properly so I learned that technique in kindergarten where you put down layers and layers of crepah and then you scratch through it and that’s how I started drawing on pots”…..

“I think that the local is universal really. I did these surfing posters for Mambo about surfing history and I based them on my own teenagerhood or whatever and wrote about characters who hung around the beach”.

“There’s that view of Australia’s surfers as being like bronzed gods...and so it seemed like a really obvious thing to do to turn them into Ulysses and Atlas going down the beach. So in some ways you’re poking fun at the whole thing...the whole subculture.www.postcards-sa.com.au/features/jamboree_clay

PerspectivesGerry Wedd enjoys a national reputation in Australia for his handbuilt blue and white ceramics that brim with a dry wit oscillating from the humorous to darkly disturbing. In the mid-1980s he was designing and creating ceramics, textiles, posters, clothing, metalwork and surfboards for Mambo…

For Wedd blue and white is epitomised by the famous and enduring willow pattern that has been mass-produced in Britain since the 1790s.

The inauthenticity of the willow pattern’s exotic world appealed to Wedd, who has set about updating the willow pattern in a series of work that bring contemporary Australian culture to bear on Asia.

By incorporating nostalgic, personal and typically Australian references in his tableau, Wedd updates the willow pattern to comment on contemporary life and identity.

For the work Arcadia, 2006, Wedd transformed the two-dimensional willow pattern into a three-dimensional tableau with the addition of new elements. Arcadia,zealouslyguarded,isaflawedideological site from which an unfolding drama of rejection is played out by Wedd’s figurines in response to contemporary displays of xenophobia and racism in Australia.

Wedd’s other work, Thong cycle, 2006, consists of four ceramic patterned ‘thongs’, Australian slang for sandals, which are a ubiquitous part of our laidback outdoor lifestyle. Wedd’s painted scenes irreverently relocate the willow pattern from tableware to footwear, but the boat is now loaded with human cargo, the stacked houses are Australian and doubleness of meaning abounds.

www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Exhibitions/SALA/Gerry-WEDD

WorkGerry Wedd’s signature Blue and White ceramic urn entitled Towards a Standard is a very personal dedication to the many individuals who have contributed over the past 40 years to the JamFactory indifferent roles.

In the interlocking shapes that wrap around the urn are images of creative individuals making their wares, or drawings of ceramic pieces which provide clues to the identities of their creators.In one shape is the man who made the dream of the JamFactory become a reality. Wedd has written the words spiritual father of the Jam at the head and Don at the feet of this figure. He is the young Don Dunstan, Premier of the state of South Australia 40 years ago and who was a great supporter of the Arts. Quotes inscribed into the surface might raise a few eye brows alongside humorous portraits of the many friends Wedd made while at the Jam Factory. If the comical comments and irreverent images were not present it would not be typical of a Gerry Wedd creation.

Framing questions and researchTom Moore and Gerry Wedd create artworks that make people smile, even laugh.Do you think there is a place for humour in the art world? •Usingexamplesfromtheexhibitionexplainyourviewsonhowhumourworksinart

The inspiration behind the work of both artists comes from their real world and an imaginary one. Which of the artist’s two worlds do you prefer?•Justifyyouranswerbydescribingwhataspectsoftheartworksinfluencedyourchoice.

There is also a serious side to the humour in Moore and Wedd’s artworks.•Listtheunderlyingissuesaddressingbytheseartistsandthendescribehowthesemessagesarerevealed in the artworks.

Further researchDr Marcus Bunyan, pondlurking by tom moore, Art Blart review, Helen Gory Galerie, Prahran, Melbourne, 10 March-3 April 2010- positive review of Moore’s exhibition with a selection of images of the exhibition space.

Mooreismore.com is Tom Moore’s official website with news, information, two videos and animation plus a contact for the artist.

www.craftaustralia.org.au/forum/2006/Tom_Moore early bio. details, images and further sources

www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=348903 image, description and production notes for glass diorama Little Known Facts designed and made by Tom Moore.

www2.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/arts/exhibitions/blueandwhite.html website for A Secret History of Blue and White Australian ceramic artists exhibition in which Gerry Wedd participated.

http://www.swellnet.com.au/news/3373-gerry-wedd-celebrating-surfing-s-underbelly an interview with Gerry Wedd about his surfing life and art.

Mark Thompson, Gerry Wedd: Thong Cycle, Adelaide: Wakefield Press a well written, interesting book on one of Australia’s most diverse and remarkable artists.

THEME 4: Visual GamesBoth artists are playing games with our visual perception. Material objects are full of trickery and artworks change as we move around them.

Honor FREEMAN Every Cloud has a Silver Lining, 2012 slipcast, handbuilt porcelain, silver lustre 280 x 500 x 400mm

“Those one-off exhibition works capitalise on the mimetic qualities of slip cast porcelain to create objects that shrewdly play with our perception of materiality and making” Margaret Hancock Davis, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p 88

Honor FREEMAN Artist statement Noticing and quietly commemorating the smaller moments that are a constant rhythm of the everyday continues to be a preoccupation in my work. ….Using the mimetic qualities of clay via the process of slipcasting, the work playfully interacts with ideas of liquid made solid due to the processes of making that are fundamental when working with clay. The porcelain casts become echoes of the original (object), the liquid slip becoming solid and forming a memory of a past form, the essence of an object. Small moments caught and made solid as if frozen in time – liquid made solid. http://www.sabbiagallery.com/artists_biography.php?pname=fre1

PerspectivesFreeman’sartworksreflectondomesticity,theeverydayandthedailyritualsthatwehavethatareoftenoverlooked. Her work is full of cheeky word play, humour and the unexpected. In this exhibition Freeman plays with the idea of extreme optimism, with titles such as when life gives you lemons and getting the wrong end of the stick. She also is interested in water: its value, the marks that it leaves as it recedes and our efforts as humans to contain it.

Her work is composed of porcelain, mostly cast from everyday items that are then generously smothered in rich glazes that impersonate liquids, freezing it in a moment in time….Yet while their approach to the subject matter and the materials they use in their artwork differs, they both create narratives out of unexpected unions of objects and materials.http://www.artnewsportal.com.au/art-news/echo-wendy-fairclough-43-honor-freeman

WorkOn first seeing Freeman’s still life grouping of very familiar domestic objects you might question its validity in an art exhibition. On closer inspection you soon realise the delicacy and complexities of her technical skills has created a visual illusion.

Janice VITKOVSKY View, 2012 Murrine technique, fused, cast and hand finished glass 590 x 590 x 20mm

Freeman has achieved a visual trick by imitating familiar objects in delicate porcelain. She presents a bucket filled with water, a jar and even a cleaning sponge as art objects and by the very clever use of areflectivelustreglazethewaterinthebucketlookliquid.

Janice VITKOVSKY Artist statement“My work is centred around notions of perspective, and how our experience colours and shapes our perspective on things”Janice Vitkovsky, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p 144

Within my work I aim to create abstract landscapes that reference a mapping of sorts, employing rhythmicandflowingpatternslayeredwithcolourthatconveyasenseofmotionandfluidity.Iliketowork within the realm of the abstract as it relates to the intangible aspects of our experiences, the unseen but felt, describing the ephemeral quality of a thought or an emotion.

ByworkingwiththeMurrinetechnique,Iamabletoachieveintricateflowingpatternsthatreferencefrequencies and depict motion. This is a process where a pattern can be built through the cross-section of the glass, and then by stretching it numerous times, the pattern is effectively miniaturised, travelling all the way through the glass. I combine this with fusing processes and cold finishing techniques to realise the finished piece.http://www.sabbiagallery.com/artists_biography.php?pname=vit1

PerspectivesJanice is a dedicated and passionate artist, who loves her material and continues to experiment with her work. She is highly skilled in the murrini technique, which is paramount in the execution of her glass sculptures and wall panels, resulting in a brilliant visual play of light and colour. The murrini construction withinherglassallowshertoachieveintricateflowingpatternsthatdepictmotion.

Her work is concerned with perpetual experience and how we internalize and re-interpret our experiences. She is interested in how we process our movement within our physical surrounds and our emotional responses that make up our view of reality outside ourselves. http://www.sabbiagallery.com/exhibition.php?ref=janicevitkovsky_08&exh=upcoming

WorkEarly in her glassmaking career Vitkovsky was introduced to the technique of murrine glass. She has since travelled the world to learn and improve her skills in this ancient form of glass making.Vitkovsky’s artwork is a soft, monochromatic green glass panel. She has created a suspended patternof intricate columns of murrine glass which change their configuration, as you move your viewing perspective.

This visual play is described as the moire effect, which Vitkovsky uses to achieve movement in her otherwise static artwork.

Videohttp://youtu.be/muxamBDrOkY

Framing questions and researchBoth Freeman’s and Vitkovsky’s artworks are playing tricks on your senses- they play with what you see and what is really there?•Describehowyourunderstandingoftheartworkschangedasyouspenttimelookingcloselyateachone. Consider not only the ideas behind the works but also the artists’ use of media and techniques.

The high degree of crafting displayed in both artists’ works can only be achieved by mastering their chosen media of clay and glass.•Researchslipcastingwithporcelainandalsothemurrineglasstechniqueandpresentyourresearchfindings to your class.

Still life has been a constant subject for artists, over several centuries from 16th century Flemish artists to contemporary artists today, such as Honor Freeman and Nick Mount, whose work you can see in this exhibition.•Explainhowyouthinktheartisticrepresentationofthis‘verydomestic’subjectmatterhaschangedandwhy it has changed.

Further research:http://twma.com.au/exhibitions/events/snap-freeze-still-life-now/ Freeman a contributor to this exhibition- short curatorial introduction on the genre of still life.Hilary Maddocks, Snap Freeze: Still Life Now in the Yarra Valley , Art Monthly Australia, Issue 204, Oct 2007, p 19-23.

http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/library/essay.php?id=mind_and_matter an edited version of the Mind and Matter catalogue essay by Margot Osborne

THEME 5: Crossing CulturesThe home grown heritage of an artists’ native country is often the first influence but not the only cultural stimulus for their creativity.

Takeshi IUE Easy Chair, 2012American white oak 800 x 450 x 600mm

Takeshi IUE Artist statementI believe in the beauty of subtlety of natural randomness and mathematical proportions and repeated pattern found in both natural and man-made environments. My designs feature a balanced chaos, emphasizing the contrasts between negative and positive spaces, proportions, colours and materials.http://takeshiiue.com/

PerspectivesAchieving simplicity is the goal for Japanese-born, Adelaide-based furniture designer Takeshi Iue. Simplicity in concept, form, materiality and ultimately construction, but perhaps not process, as Iue’s design development is often a lengthy series of exacting and painstaking iterations – a necessary progression to reach a final piece that meets his high standards. Like his design process, Iue is rigorous with his development as a practitioner. He holds three design qualifications: a Bachelor of Visual Communication from the University of South Australia, a Diploma of Art (Furniture Design) from the Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE and a two-year Furniture Studio Design Associateship from Adelaide’s JamFactory.

Many of Iue’s pieces are beguilingly simple and do not immediately reveal the complexity of their design. The hexagonal top of Trunk stool descends to a dodecagon (12-sided) base formed by precise chamfers that run vertically down the length from each point of the hexagon. The grain of the American walnut panels cause the gentle chamfer to appear a natural part of a solid trunk, but it is, in fact, a clad carcase.Designing for the exhibition Six, held at Aptos Cruz Gallery in mid-2010, Iue was not happy with the piece until he believed he had created, “something simple and timeless… something people can use for a long time”.www.australiandesignreview.com/features/21913-takeshi-iue-mastering-minimalism

WorkWhen viewing Takeshi Iue’s East chair you may be reminded of the sharp clean lines and shadows of origami paper folds. To make such a visual connection is understandable when you discover Iue’s Japanese heritage. Iue has used the unbending medium of wood to create a perfectly formed and beautifully balanced functional object. It was his clean, minimalist lines and attention to detail that

Robin BEST The Arcana Bowl, 2011 eggshell porcelain, on-glaze decoration 300 x 500mm dia

prompted South Australian furniture designer Khai Liew to ask Iue to join his company in 2009.

Iue uses no embellishments to distract our eye away from the natural beauty of the wood and sculptural lines of this timeless chair.

Videohttp://youtu.be/hjo_Z9LvEsI

Robin BESTArtist statementThe imagery that I have used in this suite of Blue and White porcelain vases has been borrowed from a time past; from European Chinoiserie including the French Toile, Baroque pattern and Rococo paintings and drawings of Pillement and Boucher.

I have then vivified them with drawings of Australian kangaroos inspired by 19th century French naturalists such as Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and have presented them on a garniture of vases based on traditional Chinese forms. China and all things Chinese have long fascinated me having spent periods of time in that country especially in Jingdezhen the home of blue and white porcelain. Australia has also been of interest to the Chinese. The Chinese came to Australia in their thousands during the gold rush of the early 1800’s and the romantic imagery of them playing music and fishing is far from the reality of life for them on the goldfields. However the Chinese did prevail and become significant landowners in Sydney, Melbourne and my hometown of Adelaide.www.adriansassoon.com/contemporary/ceramics

PerspectivesIn her work Robin Best pursues two different ways though both relate to her homeland.One of her inspirational sources is the underwater ecosystem of Australia’s south coast, whose fauna she refers to in her thin walled porcelain bowls.

Alongside that she has an interest in the cultural heritage of Australia as well as China, the country of origin for porcelain, to which she refers in her austere vases and bowls. She didn’t simply help herself to this heritage, rather - respecting its particular nature - incorporated it into an inter-cultural network by working with artists from both cultures. In this way Nyukana Baker, a distinguished artist from the Aboriginal community of Ernabella in central Australia, paints Robin Best’s vessels with patterns from her people’s wealth of traditional designs, which have also found their way into contemporary Australian painting through other Aboriginal artists. In Jingdezhen (China) Liu He Tian proves to be a competent partner on traditional porcelain painting.

His landscape scenes are indebted to the principle of Chinese painting without limiting himself to traditional forms. Robin Best entered into an artistic symbiosis with both artists which could, from the specific location of Australia and its history, be the start of an exemplary cultural dialogue. Translation: Eva Huntewww.galerie-rosenhauer.de/kuenstler/robin_best.html

In the final analysis, this work is a projection of the complex person who is Robin Best. Her wish to engage collaboratively and harmoniously with people, artistic practices, ideas and forms of visual expression outside of her own socio-cultural experience, her passionate feeling for the increasingly vulnerable Australian environment, and her desire to create objects that emulate the human body and are also beautiful, meaningful and full of grace, are all aspirations that have been fully realised in this exhibition.Dr Christine Nicholls, Robin Best’s New Work with Old Cultures, Ceramic Arts &Perception-Technical Magazine 2009, Issue 19:53

WorkBest’s Arcana Bowl contains and reveals contributions from many cultures. It’s creation by an Australian ceramicist, Robin Best started with a blank porcelain bowl made by a potter from Jingdezhen in China. Such egg shell delicacy of porcelain became possible through generations of knowledge and skills acquired by the famous ceramicists of this Chinese city. Cultural inspiration for the bowl’s exquisitely coloured, hand painted designs comes from traditional chintz patterns seen on textiles from the Coromandel Coast of south-eastern India. These hand printed cottons were a popular product traded into Europe during the 1800s, until they were banned by English law, to protect local cotton mills from closing down.

Best has added a reference to her own Australian culture by incorporating images of kangaroos and sailing ships, reminiscent of drawings by early European naturalists, who arrived on Australian soil.

Framing questions and research•AfterviewingandresearchingtheartworkscreatedbyIueandBestdescribesomeculturalinfluencesevidentintheirwork.Assesstheimportanceoftheseinfluencesontheirchoiceofmaterials, techniques, forms, style and decoration.

Do you think artists can completely ignore or supress their own cultural background in order to appreciatetheinfluencesofothercultureswhichtheyareincorporatingintotheirownartwork?•RespondtothequestionbyanalysingtheworkofIueandBesttoassesshowsuccessfulthesetwoartistshavebeeninintegratingtheinfluenceofotherculturesintotheirartworks.

Imagine you have been commissioned to design a piece of furniture or a ceramic object .•Createadrawingofyourdesignanddescribehowyouhaveincorporatedthecultureofyourownbackgroundwithculturalinfluencesfromothercountriesorhistoriesthatyouadmire.

•Findanddescribemoreexamplesinthisexhibitionofartworksthatreflecttheinfluenceoftheartist’s own cultural background and country. Further researchTakeshi Iue: New Wave Artisans, The Next Generation Uncovered , MONUMENT, issue 91 June July, 2009

http://damonmoon.com/articles/a-secret-history.html Robin Best, exhibition review of A Secret History of Blue and White: Contemporary Australian Ceramics.

THEME 6: Keep It SimpleThe inspiration for creating well crafted design or sculpture has been matched with the respective artists’ love of wood and a philosophy of sustainability

Peter WALKERThe MOON, 2012,eucalyptus, aluminium 900mm dia.

Peter WALKER Artist statementMy sculptural work in this exhibition titled The Moon, made of organic wooden elements, is a geodesic sphere in reference to geodesy, the science of measuring the size and shape of the earth.Whether the moon is crescent, full, waning or waxing it remains constant across the hemispheres.InthecontextoftheJamFactory40thanniversaryexhibition,theworkwasdevelopedwhilereflectingon the previous decade of living a life divided over opposite sides of the world, with the moon representing a “constant” element.

Placing The Moon on the ground combined with the irregularities of the structure of the sphere potentially prompts a re-examination of what can be easily overlooked as familiar. The piece is intentionally fragile, relating to the delicate balance inherent in the natural systems.The strict geometry of a geodesic sphere, composed of hexagons and pentagons, is counter balanced through the use of organic sticks introducing a less predictable sketch-like quality to the structure. The sticks were gathered beneath the eucalypts of Adelaide’s parklands.Correspondence with Peter Walker and author

Perspectives Born in Sydney in 1961, Peter Walker studied at the School of Art, University of Tasmania gaining an MFA Degree. He worked in his own studio for 14 years in Tasmania before moving to Adelaide to Head the Furniture Design Studio at the JamFactory Craft and Design Center in the late 90’s.Peter also spent five years as Design Consultant for Chiswell Furniture, Sydney, was a founding member

ILLUMINI (Karen CUNNINGHAM and Mandy KING) Holey light 1, 2012 laminatedplywood,etchedandsandblastedfloatglass, light fitting 160 x 240 x 80mm

Holey light 2, 2012 laminatedplywood,etchedandsandblastedfloatglass, light fitting 360 x 360 x 80mm

of the Designer Makers Tasmania Cooperative in 1985 and a Co Director of the 1991 Hobart Design Triennial.

Peter has won design awards in Australia and the USA and has exhibited his work regularly in Australia and North America. His work is represented in public and private collections, including the Australian Parliament House Permanent Art Collection. He is a partner in Dezco Furniture Design llc, a US based company designing ecologically considered furniture.

Between 2001 and 2011 Peter divided his time as Associate Professor of Furniture Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA and Adelaide, South Australia where he designs and builds hollow wooden surfboards. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia.www.walkersurfboards.com

WorkPeter Walker has spent his working life creating beautiful objects out of wood.He has worked collaboratively on major furniture projects in both Australia and America. He also handcrafts hollow wooden surfboards for use by surfers and Walker has commissioned local artists, like Gerry Wedd, to add artworks to the surface of the boards before they are waterproofed. Walker’s unique surfboards link several aspects of his life; his love of surfing, the ocean and the importance of a sustainable lifestyle. Maybe it is Walker’s closeness to nature and his love of the ocean that has led him in this new direction from surfboards to sculpture.

The Moon sculpture is a geodesic sphere made using wooden twigs stripped of their bark, tinted a uniform colour and joined together in an equilateral triangular pattern by metal rings of varying sizes.

Walker has created The Moon through painstaking measurement and adaptation of irregular, natural pieces of wood combined to make a sphere, just as the science of geodesy measures the size and shape of another sphere, the earth.

Videohttp://youtu.be/fIKsG5Baa0g

ILLUMINIArtist statementMandy King - A stubborn experimentalist, I’m faithful to exploring and exploiting the most spontaneous and unique qualities inherent to the material of molten glass. Fluid as water, buoyant as air, and as bright as the light that filters through it. Colour has never been so vibrant, and form never so versatile. Glass is in one word simply, alive. From the first gatherings of hot viscous to contemplating the cooled contours of a finished piece for the first time, every step of the process reveals a galaxy of possibilities I am compelled to express through the practice of object-making. I strive to transform the most innate, yet exciting characteristics discovered along the way into a new vocabulary of eye popping formal elements and design concepts for the future.www.//contemporaryco.com.au/portfolio/amanda-king/

Artist statement Karen Cunningham - My current practice focuses on the design and production of both blown glass objects and objects that incorporate glass components with other materials. These range from functional tableware to lighting and sculptural pieces.

As a glass designer and maker my work combines the design element with the hand made. It is not mass produced but infused with the human touch, a merging of the design and artisan worlds.Iaimtodesignobjectthattakeadvantageoftheinherentqualitiesofthematerialofglassie.thefluidattributesglasshaswhenitismoltenthroughthemakingprocess;andit’sreflection,refractionandlighttransmitting properties which are unmatched by any other material. Working with hot molten glass is challenging and exciting and I entirely enjoy the physical environment of the hot glass studio. In its working state glass has incredible movement and versatility, it can be blow, sculpted, stretched and squeezed.IthasanaturalflowthatisdeterminedbyheatandgravityandIamcompelledbythespontaneityofit.Itistheenjoymentanddiscoveriesofworkingwithglass,likefluidfire,thatItrytocapture in my work.Extract from correspondence from Karen Cunningham with author.

PerspectivesIt is their strong belief that they’re part of a movement of young artists who are actively re-imagining the bridge between the worlds of design and craft through our work. Their wares demonstrate successful balances of the best sensibilities both approaches of making have to offer. Intimate and intuitive understandingofmaterialcombinedwithfluencyinthecleanvisuallanguageofcontemporarydesign.Clear vision of function in greater contexts. Appreciation for the maximum efficiency of production, with a vested awareness of the impact of our objects in the world.www.top3.com.au/categories/bar-and-wine-and-water/decanter

In addition to bridging notions of craft and design , Illumini is also underpinned by a philosophy of sustainability- both minimising the environmental impact of studio glass production….. and creating work for local emerging craft artists and designers.Brian Parkes, Designing Craftt/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, 2013, p98

WorkThe Holey lights were first prototyped in early 2011 as part of a program called Glass Studio’s Special Projects at the JamFactory. The glass workshop personnel wanted to create a new glass design genre outside the more traditional categories of vases, decorative sculpture and tableware.

The result of these collaborative glass artisans thinking outside the square is a visually attractive, egg shaped nightlight that glows with a soft ambient light, powered by LED technology. Water-jet cut and etched glass is sandwiched between wooden forms that have been hand sculpted from recycled scrap plywood.

In all stages of the making of Holey lights its creators, Cunningham and King, have been true to their philosophy of sustainability and collaborative work practices.

Framing questions and researchThese three artists all focus on the idea of the importance of sustainability in their creative practice.•AftervisitingtheexhibitionandreadingtheEducationResourceinformationlisttheexamplesthatbest demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practice in your view.

•Lookintotheworkbyallartistsinthisexhibitiontofindmoreexamplesofsustainablepractice.

Identify 4 works and evaluate and explain the artists’ visual ideas.• Could sustainable art practices be an important part of your art practice? Explain why or why not?

Further researchwww.walkersurfboards.com this site provides an insight into the varied aspects of Peter Walker’s creative career

Peter Walker Surfboards from WOOD: art design architecture, You Tube- a short interview on the process of making his handcrafted wooden surfboards.

www.//contemporary.co.com.au/artists/karen-cunningham brief training background and images of work.

www.karencunningham.com.au/p/news list of other websites with news about Illumini.

www.houseandgarden/ mandiking interview with artist and contact details

THEME 7: Humble BeginningsMany artists have a fascination with the ordinary and mundane, not only as a source of inspiration for their artworks but also in their choice of creative mediums.

Peta KRUGER Geranium, 2012 brass, paint60 x 80 x 110mmLight Green Leaves, 2012brass, paint 30 x 50 x 12mmSour Sob, 2012 brass, paint 30 x 50 x 40mmAgapanthus, 2012Brass and paint

Peta KRUGER Artist statement‘TheflorathatIfeelmostacquaintedwithisnotfromnaturebutfromdecorativepatternsfoundathome– on textiles, illustrations, ceramics, glassware and other costume jewellery, which make reference to their original source but grow and change over time with different fashions and materials. These motifs form the basis of a botanical collection of my own.’ http://bilkgallery.wordpress.com/

Brass is a material that can be used to learn the basics of jewellery making, and I take great comfort and pleasure in continuing to work with it. It allows me to cut, bend and stick parts together in a playful and spontaneous way, slowly discovering a collection of shapes and patterns with which I am happy.http://petakruger.com/index.php?/soloexhibitions/this-fools-gold

PerspectivesA colourful new collection of works by Adelaide based jewellers, Peta Kruger and Kath Inglis. The artists have worked through their respective materials of metal and plastic to create wearable blooms of pattern and colour.http://bilkgallery.wordpress.com/

Kruger’s current work is inspired by the unique mix of native plants, introduced species and weeds along Adelaide’s nature strips. Transforming the humble material of brass and paint, Kruger creates beautiful brooches inspired by hardy plants, often overlooked in jewellery design’s vernacular. Margaret Hancock Davis, Designing Craft/Crafting Design catalogue, Adelaide, p114

Lesa FARRANT Flotsam and Jetsam, 2012 slip cast porcelain 420 x 120 x 100mm

WorkSpontaneity is a word that comes to mind when viewing Kruger’s brooches. Her approach to assemblage is intuitive. She directly responds to the pieces in her hands, weighs and considers them until she is happy with the final patterns and colours of her creation. Kruger finds inspiration in everyday objects we all know about, from a treasured costume jewellery collection of her younger years and commonandunnoticedplantsandflowersgrowinginmanysuburbanstreets.

Videohttp://youtu.be/q-E73haaYTc

Lesa FARRANTArtist statementMy current works in porcelain are made by producing plaster moulds of natural objects and debris found on the Port Willunga beach. I construct indigenous (endemic) plant forms from slip casting moulds made from pebbles, shells, driftwood, cuttlefish bones etc. Introduced (weed) plant forms are created from slip casting moulds made from beach rubbish like tennis balls, old thongs, golf tees, plastic bottle lids etchttp://www.artroom5.com.au/artist_lesa_farrant.html

Perspectives Lesa Farrant began the creation of a new body of work for Objectscapes, while currently studying for her Masters of Visual Arts (Uni SA). Farrant’s work is process-driven, with small droplets of porcelain slip meticulouslyapplied,atoponeanother(appliedwithasliptrailer),uponaflatporcelainbase,buildingthe droplets up to create miniature basket forms…..These intimate vessels, untreated or pale pink in colour, stand in a carefully manipulated arrangement, installation of the vessels is as crucial to the work, as is the fastidious construction.

Conceptually, Farrant explores the banality of the domicile environment, drawing on dark tales of domesticity in Sydney’s suburbs in the 1950’s.

The fragility of Farrant’s baskets, in essence non functional vessels, represent the fragility within the defunct vessel in which the housewives are drowning within a life of repetition.

Debbie Pryor, Education and exploration, Masters by research at the University of South Australia, The Journal of Australian Ceramics April 2006, p 63-64

WorkLesa Farrant has arrived at this creative stage of her career after 17 years as a dedicated ceramic artist. While researching Farrant’s earlier works, words like ‘delicate’ and ‘fragility’ have often been used to describe her ceramic pieces. Flotsam and Jetsam in this exhibition are no exception. These delicate slip cast creations are inspired by the early watercolour paintings of South Australian plants and animals by Charles Alexandre Lesueur the botanical artist on board Baudin’s ship, Geographe in South Australian waters in 1802.

To create her specimens Farrant collects natural and man made debris from the beach near her home, then slip casts her collected items with which she constructs her examples of native and noxious plants, asLesueurpaintedhisfloracollectionover200yearsago. Videohttp://youtu.be/OlNoBgZw9aM

Framing questions and researchThe words ‘ordinary’ and ‘mundane’ have been in the introductory statement to describe aspects of Kruger and Farrant’s work.

•Describethecontextinwhichthesewordswereusedandexplainwhetheryouthinktheirusedevalued the work of these artists?

•Howimportantistheconceptofcollectingtothecreativeinspirationofthesetwoartists.Describeas many examples as you can find to support your answer.

•Afterviewingworksbythesetwoartistsintheexhibition,describesomesimilaritiesanddifferencesbetweenthemusingexamplestosupportyouranswer.Considertheirideas,influences,techniquesandmaterials.

•Examplesofcraftinginclayandmetalcanbefoundineveryhousehold.Withthisideainmind,explainthe characteristics that place these works by Kruger and Farrant into the realm of fine art.

Further researchCeramicsTECHNICAL Magazine No 15 2002 The Jamboree Workshops article by Wendy Walker about the history of this lively and established ceramic workshop in South Australia where Lesa Farrant exhibited.

The Journal of Australian Ceramics, volume 45#1, 2006, p62 & cover –information about Lesa Farrant.

THEME 8: Our Natural WorldAs highly respected leaders in their chosen fields of glass and ceramics, Nick Mount and Stephen Bowers have sought inspiration from the natural world, to create their art.

Nick MOUNT Still Life with Bosc and Strange Fruit #0806112(557), 2012blown glass, granula murrini, carved, polished, assembled, olive wood, American oak 470 x 890 x 180mm

Nick MOUNT Artist statementI enjoy working in this way; making a whole group in an evolving series. Each piece may appear unrelated, but will be both complete in its own right and eventually also be part of a whole. My joy is first in the crafting part; I have pride in my ability to work as a craftsperson; I enjoy blowing and finishing each separate piece, and physically engaging with the process of working with the material. But it is equally enjoyable to spend days and weeks considering the pieces in a sculptural, structural way. The assembly part is also spontaneous and innovative, as well as having to be sound from an engineering perspective. Nick Mount, interview with Jo Litson, ‘Top of the glass’, The Weekend Australian, November 21-22, 1998

PerspectivesNick Mount has been one of the leading figures in the Australian studio glass movement since the early 1970s. Over the subsequent decades, as both teacher and practitioner, he has made a significant contribution to the development of glass as an artistic medium in this country. Mount’s work is represented in major private and public collections including state galleries and the National Gallery of Australia. He also exhibits regularly in Europe, the United States and Japan. Like many artists working in hot glass, Mount draws from Venetian traditions. He was introduced to these by the American glass artist, Richard Marquis, who had worked at the renowned Venini factory in Murano in 1969, and came to Australia in the early 70s to demonstrate glassblowing.

Employed to assist Marquis, Mount was immediately fascinated by the unknowable nature of glass and challenged by the degree of skill required to work with it. Further inspired by subsequent studies in glass in the USA and a visit of his own to Murano, Mount launched into a creative exploration of glass that continues to reach new levels of technical and artistic achievement. www.nickmount.com.au

Since the mid 1970’s Nick Mount has been working on a developing studio arts practice in glass. In partnership with Pauline Mount, he has established a wide reputation for his production, commissions

Stephen BOWERS White Cockatoos, 2010 earthenware, underglaze colour, clear earthenware glaze 70 x 670mm dia.

and exhibition work, and is now regarded as one of Australia’s pre-eminent glass artists. Since 1997 his work has focused on the development of an evolving series of sculptural forms entitled ‘Scent Bottle’. Around a constant motif of a stoppered vessel, finely crafted glass forms are used in the construction of works that refer to the artist’s passion for the traditions of his materials and the people that work them. Nick travels to teach and exhibit abroad, but remains based in Adelaide, South Australia.www.sabbiagallery.com/artists_biography

WorkMany articles and interviews describe Nick Mounts’ practice of creating ongoing series of works, such as his Scent bottles series, for which he is reknown. The Still Life with Bosc and Strange Fruit # 0806112(557), in this exhibition, represents a new direction, a new series being developed by Mount. He has been inspired by the history of still-life painting and taken this genre in another conceptual direction.Traditionally still life paintings recorded imperfections and decay of the fruit and vegetables asasymbolicreferencetothemortalityofallflesh.

This genre started in the 16th century in Flanders and Holland when a painting of a collection of objects sitting on a table generally contained a significant religious message for their viewer.On viewing Mount’s exquisitely shaped and vibrantly coloured fruit and vegetable forms there is no hint of decay or imperfection. On the contrary, they appear immortal, with light catching rich colours and perfect shape in the glass forms.

Videohttp://youtu.be/92PGTjUw-6E

Stephen BOWERSArtist statementI create works that are sometimes useful but always decorative. I am interested in the ability to look back and recontextualise stories, interpret meanings and examine the legacy of traditions.As well as studying Australian urban landscape I look at its biological and zoological information and explore Australia’s diverse and multiform human culture. I am interested in imagining possible histories and in bringing together unexpected conjunctions of ideas and images. I treat ceramics as a blank canvass upon which I can create pictures, working with unusual decorative techniques more often encountered outside of the familiar patch of the potter. A lot of my images arise in spontaneous ways – a sort of improvised “stream of (un)consciousness”.I am interested in skills and techniques – particularly the traditional ceramic arts and crafts of the Orient and Europe. I admire their ability to communicate. Their achievements in turn inform my own work.

As an appreciator of creative skill, I try to create fine, resolved detail and striking images. I hope to intrigue and surprise the viewer who looks at my work more than once.http://robingibson.net/exhibitions/stephen-bowers

“He describes this visual narrative as: ... a collage of dumped street waste, and accretion of images from memory, media, museums and books. ... I am interested in the legacy of tradition, in where things come from, in origins, stories and contexts ... and in pottery’s role in contemporary life.”http://w3.unisa.edu.au/artarchitecturedesign/events/artspeak/artistspeak2010asp

PerspectivesThrough the wry humour and juxtapositions of the layered and overlapping visuals of this work, Bowers makes reference to the design conventions of popular traditional ceramics such as the ubiquitous blue-and-white Willow pattern found in many Australian homes (or found as shards in rubbish dumps). AlsopartofthisvisualillusionarepaintedfragmentsofbotanicalillustrationofAustralianfloraandfaunasuch as banksias and cockatoos, well-known characters from Australian comics of the 1930s and Sydney landmarks such as the Opera House, Luna Park and the Harbour Bridge merging into the mannered Chinoiserie of the background.

By using such references, Bowers links us to the role that ceramics can play in defining our intimate and domestic experiences of place, time and memory.. By Robert Bell Senior Curator Decorative Arts and Design in ‘artonview’, issue 59, spring 2009

In choosing to use ceramic forms as curved and irregular painting surfaces, Bowers was able to exercise his drawing and painting skills along with his growing interest in cross-cultural traditions of ceramics decoration. As the artist comments, a central part of his practice consists of ‘reaffirming the position, role and presence of painting within the ceramic tradition.’

A parallel interest in period illustration, particularly 18th- and 19th-century copper plate book illustration, continues to provide inspiration for the designs Bowers applies to ceramic forms.Bowers acknowledges that the funk-based ideas underlying the work of Nuske and Thompson in particular inspired him to pursue ceramics as his preferred medium. Their work reinforced the idea that ceramics need not be merely, as Bowers says,‘brown and round’.

The interesting aspect of Bowers’ conversion to this broadly funk aesthetic is that, unlike most artists exploring the genre, he focused his creative energies on the surface rather than exploit the sculptural possibilitiesofceramics.ItisalsoinflectedbythedeliberateinclusionofAustralianmotifsandculturalreferences which leave no doubt that the artist intends to be more than an entertaining pasticheur. As one writer has put it: ‘Bowers is an instigator of a new consciousness in Australian pottery, thrusting ournativefloraandfaunaintothelimelightasalegitimateformofdecoration.Heskirtstheedgeofkitschness while investing authenticity into the use of Australian symbols in the hope of developing our native visual language

He was born in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains in 1952 and considers that a childhood rich in out-of-doors adventure has left him with an enduring sense of kinship with the Australian bush and its creatures. Birds have featured prominently as decoration on Bowers’ plates, cups and teapots since the 1970s. Sulphur-crested cockatoos have appeared in Bowers’ designs, often with speech or thought bubbles assigning them a role of conscious commentary as observers within the work.http://www.craftsouth.org.au/article-details/profiles/77/6

WorkStephen Bower’s love of the Australian bush started when he was a young boy. Now, as a highly respected artist, he is still inspired by the plants and animals of the bush.Two sulphur crested cockatoos sit comfortably on their perch of an old gnarled gum, each bird intent on holding onto a cord held in its’ beak.

Intricate detail in every feature of the eucalyptus plant is reminiscent of beautiful botanical studies done by the European artists who visited our shores, as explorers in the 18th and 19th centuries, in the early days of white settlement.

Shardsofequallyornatepiecesofchina,floatinavoidofblueandochreandbringsusbacktothe20thcentury, with Bower’s characteristically whimsical touch.These shards need close scrutiny for each one contains a tableau of the past, although often with a quirky twist.

Framing questions and researchIn the information above both Nick Mount and Stephen Bowers discuss in some detail the inspiration behind their artistic careers and the artworks in this exhibition.•Preparesummariesoftheirexplanationsanddescribetheimpactoftheirculturalandsocialheritageon their art. •Explainwhichfeaturesintheseartists’worksidentifythemaspostmodernorcontemporaryworksofart. Make reference to technique, media, decorative elements and functionality.

BothartistsdescribetheimportanceofNature’sinfluenceinthecreationoftheirartworksonshowhere.•Arguefromyourpointofview,howsuccessfullyeachartisthasclearlydemonstratedaconnectiontoNature.

In the Designing Craft : Crafting Design Education Resource find a section entitled Design: making a mark by John Neylon .•Usingtheexplanationof‘gooddesign’asasupportforyourownargument,listasmanyfeaturesasyoucan find that identify artworks by these two master craftsmen as being in the ‘good design’ category.

Further research www.nickmountglass.com.au Nick Mount’s home page with reference to further articles and publications.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb7Q5LPjFsk Youtube Nick Blowing Glass at the Jam.m4v 9.40 mins

http://www.salife7.com.au/adelaide/people/interesting/nick-mount---glass-artist Leigh McClusky, interview with Nick Mount in his studio, SA Life-Nick Mount-Glass video 4.40 mins

Nick Mount: Living Treasures2012- Craft Australia magazine article on Nick Mount with biography and video link

www.diggins.com.au/?artist=stephen-bowers artist’s biography and images of recent work.

www.diggins.com.au/?exhibitions=stephen-bowers John Neylon’s overview of Stephen Bowers work in Larks Tongue in Aspic IV Exhibition, with images of artworks.

7. FURTHER RESEARCH

JamFactory Resources

•JamFactorywebsitewww.jamfactory.com.au

•MostoftheDesigning Craft/Crafting Design artists have extensive www profiles varying from extended biographies and professional profiles, media articles and interviews and academic essays. Many of the artists have dedicated artist or gallery websites which provide valuable background briefing. These sites are referenced in the artists’ profiles (Section 2).

•TheDesigning Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of JamFactory catalogue (with complete curatorial essay) can be accessed from JamFactory.

JamFactory: OriginsThe 1950s – 1960s saw the emergence in Australia of a perception that craft and design had an important role to play in the cultural and economic life of the nation. A 1971 federal government initiative, a national Committee of Enquiry into the Crafts published findings (1975) which had significant consequences for development. In 1973 The Australia Council was created. The Council, through its boards began to develop policies which supported and created opportunities for craftspeople. This development coincided with trends within South Australia in the late 1960s –1970s to develop design and craft education and craft or design-based industries. Locally there were a number of factors (including the growingnumberofAdelaidegalleriesexhibitingfinecraftanddesign,theinfluenceofSouthAustralianSchool of Art lecturers such as Alex Leckie, Margaret Douglas and Helen Macintosh and Milton Moon and the professional development opportunities created by the newly formed Australia Council Crafts Board, which consolidated development.

In South Australia, by the beginning of the 1970s, there was general support within the art/craft/design community and in government for a programme or organization that would become the focus and key support agency for craft/design education and industry. The idea had been in the air for some time.

As one of the key figures in the establishment of what initially became the Jam Factory, Dick Richards, describes it, ‘ The 1960s was an exciting time to be in Australia: Germaine Greer set dinner parties on fire, the Vietnam War polarised Australia, politics suddenly engaged the population and there was a sense of entitlement among young people. Sleepy but awakening observers, we felt empowered to bring about change. It is true that it was my idea to start something like the Jam Factory, but ideas like that were in the air, and it was Don Dunstan and his close staff, Peter Ward and Len Amadio, together with other specialists, including Marcia Del Thomas, President of both the Adelaide and national Crafts Councils, who made it happen.’

Research undertaken involved an evaluation of existing programmes, industries and agencies in Europe, The United Kingdom. These included methods developed by the British Design Council, the programmes in operation at the Kilkenny Design Workshops in Cork, Ireland, and marketing strategies in operation in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe which resulted in hand-made and well-designed home ware being available to a mass market.

In 1972, the South Australian Premier Don Dunstan, through the Premier’s Department, commissioned a comprehensive study of ‘design and craft industries in South Australia’. The reporting committee recommended (along with other initiatives) that a ‘Craft Authority’ be created to establish a craft and design training workshop in Adelaide.

The Craft Authority opened the Jam Factory retail shop and factory in 1974 in the old Mumzone Factory on Payenham Road, St Peters. The site was originally a food processing and distribution facility for the South Australian Fruitgrowers Cooperative Society Ltd, trading as Mumzone Products Ltd.

The first workshop/studios trained apprentices to produce work for sale. They were run by leading national and international craftspeople in the fields of glass blowing, leather working, jewellery and weaving.

JamFactory - what is it?Contributors to the JamFactory exhibition book (Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 years of JamFactory) have provided a number of perspectives on what makes up JamFactory as an organisation and a vision. Margot Osborne includes Stephen Bowers’ (former Managing Director

JamFactory and Head of its Ceramics Studio) perspective that ‘JamFactory was both a place and an idea… His comment points to how it has become a mirror— or perhaps a sponge is a better analogy—for changing notions of what crafting and designing objects might be all about. It has survived partly becauseofitsflexibilityinadaptingtothesechanges.’Margot Osborne, ‘A Place and an Idea – JamFactory 1973 – 2013’, p. 29

‘The Jam Factory’s goal at the time (early 1970s) was to create an environment where small craft-and design-based enterprises could grow and contribute to the South Australian economy by producing high quality, value-added goods made from local raw materials for the local and Asian markets, particularly Japan.’Dick Richards, ‘JamFactory – The beginning, a personal view’, p.21

‘JamFactory is a truly synergetic, complex organisation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This complex, interdependent relationship of parts has been the source of its creative strength, although it has also contributed to recurring financial crises when a weakness in one part threatened the sustainability of the organisation. It has always survived, and usually thrived, but this has been a hard-won survival. In the process it has matured into a unique arts organisation, and one of which South Australians and the government can be proud.’Margot Osborne, ‘A Place and an Idea –JamFactory 1973 – 2013’, p. 31

‘In conclusion, in its 40 years of ceaseless creative production, JamFactory has helped shape many of the individuals who lead Australian contemporary craft and design practice, and it has challenged and extended our understanding of what contemporary craft and design might be. It has become a vital part of South Australia’s creative culture and a resource for all South Australian professional craft and design practitioners.’Margot Osborne, ‘A Place and an Idea –JamFactory 1973 – 2013’, p. 39

‘For me, JamFactory is much more than the purpose-built three-storey building in Morphett Street, Adelaide. It is a community of creative people, both within the building and well beyond. It is a powerful vehicle to engage audiences in the social, cultural and economic value of both good design and the maintenance and refinement of craft skills.’Brian Parkes, ‘JamFactory Now’, p.61

‘Right from its inception, JamFactory was international both in its perspective and in the craftspeople, artists and designers it attracted.’Ian Were, ‘ It’s an international thing’, p 48

‘One of the most memorable things for me about my time at the Jam was the generosity of spirit - the willingness to share ideas, to be truly collaborative - displayed by all who worked there. There was a lot of cross fertilisation of ideas.’Jennifer Layther, Head of Workshop Knitted Textile Design, 1982 - 1990

‘I found it very rewarding to see people respond to the opportunities JamFactory offered them. Responding to the idea and the reality of JamFactory – Associates, Studio Heads, colleagues, visiting artists, visiting appreciators of contemporary craft – all enhanced in some way by their association with JamFactory.’Mark Ferguson, Managing Director, 1997 – 2004 Design: making a markContemporary design. Where to start or finish? Web, computer game, software, graphic, architectural, urban or landscape design? Or design as aligned with the arts such as theatre, fashion, interior, furniture or ceramics? And is this ‘design’ the noun (a designed something) or the verb (designing something)? The modern era has found multiple uses for this one simple word. But its origins still hold the key to its essential meaning. The Latin word ‘designare’ described the act of ‘marking out’. Signifying something. Making a sign. In the modern era this idea of design as something distinctive, as the product of creative thought, which impacts on the way we ‘use’ the world, persists. It’s a privileged word in our society. So it should be. It has important work to do.

The modern design era of the first part of the 20th century thought it held all the answers with its enthusiasm for the machine aesthetic and the utopian promises of mass production. But the second half of the century saw design subsumed into the wider contexts of pop culture and mass consumerism. This was a context in which fashion and popular taste, driven by advertising, ‘celebrity designers’ and iconic labels overran the idea that ‘good design’ was something made only by product ‘designers’ for people who could afford it. Enter the world of ‘designer-clothing’, designer-furniture’ and ‘designer-food’. With the ‘designer-store’ IKEA signifying membership of a global club, the democratization of design-for-living, looks complete. With the aid of on-line catalogues and computer graphics simulations you too can be an interior designer.

So where does that leave young artists who work hard to qualify and practice as designers and the agencies like universities, TAFE colleges and craft and design centres who support them? The answer lies in the market place and in community and individual life. The world, communities and individuals want ‘designare’. They want that sign, that signature object and the experience that goes with it because it spells ‘special’. Mass production has gone part of the way to satisfying that need. An easily affordable retro-light fitting can brighten up that corner in your life. But market place demand continues to demonstrate a different level of need; for designed-mediated experiences that significantly enhance daily life. This enhancement may take the form of offering beauty, compelling thought, confirming values, triggering emotions, exciting imagination, amusing, making a distinctive statement, carrying a message or simply offering brilliant functionality. Enter the artist/designer.

Anyone who has attempted to mend a piece of furniture let alone design and construct one from the bench top up; or wrestled with a lump of clay trying to turn it into a bowl appreciates the level of skill involved in making well-crafted objects that people will pay good money for. And if the market place also wants a high level of creativity to go with the fine crafting then the bar is that much higher. Creative, skilled designers deliver on this. But where do they come from and how do they develop skills in not only crafting materials but also being innovative and being successful professionals?

These are questions that JamFactory, through its diverse programmes, and Associates Program in particular, continues to address.’Extract from John Neylon, catalogue essay ‘Making a mark’, for Design Now, a Country Arts SA touring exhibition (2008 – 2009).

Framing questionsIt is often claimed that good design will ‘enhance daily life’. What do you think this expression means? Do you know of any examples?

Reality TV shows promote the idea that anyone can be a designer and that the only thing that matters is catching the judges’ eyes. Do you believe that ‘you too can be a designer’ - without any formal training?

Analyse one of the JamFactory designer video interviews from the perspective of skills development and application.

Extended research resourcesThe following sites have been selected on the basis of offering research strategies, theoretical frame-works, wider context and current information about contemporary design and craft.

http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/research/about_the_research_centreCraft Australia’s Research Centre has an e-journal craft + design enquiry. This is an excellent resource for researching current issues and theoretical frameworks.

http://www.dhub.orgThis Powerhouse Museum site incorporates news, articles and events covering a wide spectrum of design: fashion, interior and furniture, craft, graphic design and digital media, architecture and landscape.

http://criticalmaking.com/craft/Includes a checklist of recent books on craft within contemporary art and design.

www.powerhousemuseum.comPowerhouse Museum, SydneyRecommend sections: Education: SCAMPER Design Activity (activity-based strategies for generating design solutions)

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/powerofmaking/

This Victoria and Albert Museum link gives access to video interviews and texts related to an exhibition Power of Making (2011). Within the videos artists and designers give insights into their practices and the nature of the design process. A highly recommended resource.

http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/7244The Design Museum, London, is the world’s leading museum of 20th and 21st century design, architecture and fashion. This site offers extensive education (interactive and pdf research downloads for teachers and students)

http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/7248Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design MuseumRecommend sections: Explore Design. Learn

http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/e/education-centre/Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonRecommend sections: Learning

http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/8815The Design Exchange (DX) is Canada’s design centre and museum with a mission to promote the value of design.Recommend sections: Education: Resources

http://www.design-museum.de/de/informationen.htmlVitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, GermanyRecommend sections: 100 Masterpieces (history of modern design as seen through 100 chairs)

http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/7893Museum of Arts and Design, New York Recommend sections: Learn/Teacher Resource Materials. Within this section is a module ‘ What is Design’ which introduces key terminology and concepts related to exploring aspects of contemporary design.

http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/18860Bauhaus Museum, Berlin.This site gives an introduction to the history, philosophy and collections of the Bauhaus

http://designthinkingforeducators.comA ‘tool kit’ style site with video clips of educators talking about their understanding of design and design processes. Useful as PD resource.

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/about-design/What-design-is-and-why-it-matters/What is design? This feature on the UK Design Council website offers some useful perspectives. This site is also a good directory to sites which addresses ideas linked to sustainable design, meeting social needs through design and innovation.

http://vimeo.com/5820010‘What is design?’. An UK Design Council animation introducing concepts and terminology linked to an understanding of contemporary design.

http://startupsthisishowdesignworks.comThis site explores the turbo-charged environment of international corporate design while asking straightforward questions about the nature and purpose of design in a modern world.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/grayson_perry/introduction.aspxThis link introduces an exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman curated by the artist Grayson Perry. Perry’s new (ceramics) works are exhibited alongside objects made by unknown men and women throughout history, drawn from the British Museum’s collection. Perry comments, ‘ The craftsman’s anonymity I find especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist.’

Government partners:

Presenting partner:

Principal sponsor:

Principal sponsor of our 40th anniversary and the exhibition Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of JamFactory.

Touring partner: